


Emergence

by Blackpenny



Category: Blake et Mortimer | Blake and Mortimer
Genre: Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 08:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4599855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackpenny/pseuds/Blackpenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of The Septimus Wave is absolutely horrifying to me. Eleven men are nearly catatonic, unable to help themselves or express any desires or sorrows. Awful! Olrik is one of them, and according to the timeline he's supposed to commit a few more capers later in the year. How is he supposed to recover and get out?</p><p>Part of this story depicts my idea of what the men are going through. It's not a realistic depiction of mental illness in any way, but I hope it's creepy and horrifying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They staff on the special ward are called the Banks Squad, after the ranking patient. Privately, they refer to themselves as the Blank Squad, which is more descriptive. Dr. Soprianski has assembled a team dedicated to the care of these men, with orders to maintain strict routine and equitable treatment. He took care to stress that last particular when Colonel Olrik was brought to the ward. The colonel has endured the Mega Wave, the Septimus Wave, and direct contact with the alien presence; he’s a valuable specimen, if nothing else, and is therefore cared for along with the British soldiers.

The routine never varies. At 6 a.m. the night watch leaves and the day nurses come to wake the men individually. Alarms have proven counterproductive. There is a rotating schedule for feeding, shaving, bathing and dressing the patients. They will walk if led by the hand and swallow if spoon-fed, but none of the men is capable of fending for himself in any way. They cannot even express discomfort or a preference for one form of hospital pap over another. 

In addition to the basic care, each man undergoes a daily physical check and a complete weekly exam. Everything is noted and analysed, from tiny changes in blood pressure to the eerie episodes of group shouting. Banks Squad staffers have shorter workweeks than most hospital employees because their work is particularly exhausting and demoralizing. 

Soprianski never expresses pessimism, but he is running out of things to try. There’s no question of returning to the occupational therapy he was doing. Drugs and electroshock have proved worthless and the men have deteriorated so much since they were first admitted to the hospital. There is talk of experimental surgery, perhaps on the one patient nobody will miss, but Soprianski is resisting. He still considers Olrik a kind of golden goose.

Sometimes Soprianski talks to his patients. “What are you doing in there? Are you ready to come out yet?” They never answer of course. They’re all far too busy inside their own minds.

Like all the Banks Squad patients, Olrik spends his days desperately running through hallways, hiding in dark corners, searching for exits. His body is still and slack but his inner self is in a constant state of high alert, terrified of the forces that torment him every waking moment, and all his moments are waking because Olrik’s inner life doesn’t include beds or clocks or a sense of real time. The hostile forces mostly take the form of Septimus clones or the Alien Presence, but distorted, horrifying versions of figures from his own life show up as well: Basam Damdu reaching for him with impossibly long arms, Professor Mortimer crouched in a corner, baring fangs. Olrik keeps running, hiding, and searching for an escape route until his body receives it’s nightly sedative.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olrik's world is very small and very strange.

The first sign of hope is a kind of shimmer in the wall. Olrik creeps from his hiding place in a dark corner and cautiously places a hand close the spot, not daring to touch it. There’s a strange sensation, as if someone or something is attempting to shake his hand, so he snatches it back and retreats to his corner. The shimmer disappears and Olrik continues his search.

The next time it’s a sound. These corridors are hideously noisy – terrifying crashes, eerie hissing, footsteps that almost sync with his own – but this is different. It’s… a human voice? Yes, a voice, speaking in a calm measured tone. He strains to listen but can only make out a few words: propulsion… hull… practicable. It doesn’t make sense and the voice fades away after a few seconds.

There are more sounds, more shimmers. Olrik brings himself to touch the wall and is shocked to see two hands holding his own. Olrik snatches his own hands away in terror and the shimmer shrinks. Recklessly, he touches the spot again and the other hands come back. He attempts to clasp and pull, but the hands fade away. Are these shimmers signs of weakness? Could they be portals to some other place or plane?

Olrik stops running when the monsters come. Instead, he turns to face them. The Septimus-things falls to pieces when struck. Olrik hunts down and destroys them all, silencing their calls for “Guinea Pig.” The Alien Presence retreats, growing smaller and smaller until it disappears. The others monsters fade away until the corridors are comparatively quiet. The shimmers grow larger and more frequent and they give slightly when pushed. It occurs to Olrik that he has been in this maze for months but has not eaten or slept or seen the same hallway twice. How can this be? 

The hands come back from time to time; sometimes he can see them, sometimes not. Their touch is unpleasant because it is random and unexpected, but they do him no harm. There are other strange sensations as well: a feeling like warm water running over his body; clicks and snaps at his fingertips and toes, faint smells and tastes. There are more voices. He’s identified some as male, others as female. He makes out a few words but nothing that makes sense.

Olrik finds that he is able to concentrate much better now that the monsters are gone. He thinks back to how he got to this place. He hasn’t been here forever, has he? There was something before he started walking these halls, there had to be. People don’t live in hallways. People live in other places. He can’t quite think of the word or make a picture in his mind, but there are other places, he’s almost sure of that. If it weren’t for the voices and the shimmers, he’d go mad from isolation. Perhaps he will anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The men of Banks Squad begin to act out.

The hands are right there again, holding his own for long enough for Olrik to get a good look: man’s hands, white, wide and long-fingered, with auburn hairs. Olrik clasps the hands, determined to hold on until something happens. Sure enough, there’s a shimmer and a voice. These things must be connected! Olrik strains to listen: 

__

New approach…

__

Spillover…

__

Five days…

__

Experimental…

__

Stimulation…

__

Rays…

__

Rays!

The memory hits him so hard it’s almost physical. There were rays. There was a chase, and a blinding light, and terrible pain. He had been in some kind of fight… is he here because he lost? That was before, another time and place. Did they (They?) seal the exits to prevent contamination? Seal how? Exits to what?

The hands withdraw and Olrik is unable to pull them back, but at least the memory remains: chase, light, pain, a confrontation. His thoughts become more connected. The danger had been unknown, mysterious, not of this world. Could he have been dragged into another dimension? Is he part of something else now?

Olrik considers these questions and decides that he is a separate person trapped in a strange place that may or may not be real. Olrik is leaning toward the latter explanation, because unless this is a tailor-made hell, it’s too strange to be real. If this is the case, then there is something separating him from the world he used to know. (Houses! People live in houses. He remembers!) Either it is a physical force keeping him from interacting with his world, or something that is attacking his perceptions. An injury? An implant? Another ray? He feels a hand on his wrist and looks down. It’s a small woman’s hand with short nails. It disappears.

Meanwhile Nurse Muriel Thompson of the Banks Squad is startled by a sharp cry just as she’s about to inject a sedative into Olrik’s right arm. 

“What is it Agnes?” 

“It’s Corporal Brown. Come quickly.”

Thompson puts the syringe back on the tray and joins her colleague. Nurse Anderson is staring at Corporal Brown, who seems to be mouthing words. 

“He’s trying to tell us something.”

“Janine.”

Anderson and Thompson exchange glances. This is the first word any of the Banks Team patients has said other than “Sanctuary.”

“Janine.”

“I’ll watch him. Go get Dr. Shaw.”

Anderson hurries off to fetch the doctor in charge. Thompson watches as Brown struggles to form words.

“Janine. Home. Danger!” Brown raises his hands as if signaling someone far away.

From a corner of the ward, another man speaks. “Rescue. Major. The fuse!”

A third pipes up. “Look! The eye! The eye!”

By the time the doctor comes, Nurse Thompson is completely rattled with surprise and joy. She goes back to Olrik, who is sound asleep in his cot, and is momentarily confused. She doesn’t remember giving him the injection, but she must have, because he’s out like a light. Oh, well, just too much excitement this evening, that’s it. 

The members of Banks Squad whisper to themselves. Something has changed, for good or ill. The men are different now, but how? They sit with pencils and tablets, under orders to record every sleep utterance and movement. The nurses wait. The men sleep. Olrik dreams as he had not dreamt since Egypt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as Olrik is concerned, he's been running and hiding forever, not a few weeks. He hasn't had any sense of sleeping and starting a new day.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olrik decides to take a risk.

Olrik wakes up sore and hungry. It’s incredible. How long has it been since he was aware of sleeping and waking states? The soreness in his lower back and shoulders is so vivid and real and strange. Is that food he smells? Porridge? His stomach actually growls. 

The corridor looks different as well; it’s pale grey and oddly textured. Olrik tries to reach for it and can’t. His limbs are impossibly heavy. With an effort he turns his head to the right. Is that a curtain? It looks like it, and if that cloth is a curtain then what he thought was the hallway is in fact a ceiling. He’s lying on his back, in a bed of all things.

The settles it. He is no longer in Limbo, or wherever that was, but where is he? Olrik’s heart races, but he remains perfectly still. Sights: curtain, ceiling, brightening light. Smells: harsh soap, old wool, floor polish, porridge. Sounds: footsteps, whispers, snores, distant traffic. Feelings: body aches, weakness, cold feet, mattress, pillow, sheet, and the weight of a blanket. Taste: sourness in his mouth. This is the world from before! Somehow he’s made it back. 

Olrik’s survival instincts kick in quickly He doesn’t seem to be a prisoner, but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. Footsteps approach and Olrik closes his eyes and forces his body to relax. There’s the sound of the curtain opening and a hand lightly touches his shoulder. “Time to wake up.” English. That’s good to know. He makes a show of slowly opening his eyes, keeping them as expressionless as possible. The speaker is a woman of about thirty in a white uniform with a cap. A nurse! So this is a hospital? 

The nurse is not a big woman but she lifts him to a seated position with little apparent effort. What he sees is astonishing. He’s in a large room lined with beds, each containing a man. There are a half-dozen nurses on patrol. No, they’re waking the men up. The men – patients, he assumes – range in age from about 25 to 55. Their faces are slack; their movements are painfully slow. Olrik watches, appalled, as some are spoon-fed and others hauled into wheelchairs. Olrik’s own attendant fetches a breakfast tray. As distasteful as it is, Olrik allows himself to be fed. He slowly sips water from a straw and stares blankly as the nurse to wipe his mouth. 

It takes some effort to look and listen while pretending to be semi-catatonic. When his nurse – Pritchard is her name – turns her back he attempts to shift in the bed. His muscles work after a fashion, but they’re terribly weak and slow. The nurses and orderlies speak freely in front of the men, and Olrik gathers that all the patients have been part of the same traumatic event. Some of the men began talking last night. It’s a breakthrough. They’re alerting families and calling in specialists.

Other salient facts: he’s in London, in Bethlem Royal Hospital to be exact. It’s 1954. The other patients were injured in the last war. He’s been in the hospital for mere weeks. The diagnosis is brain damage of a kind yet to be determined. He does not crave morphine. He has occasional visitors, whom the nurses inconveniently do not name.

Olrik grits his teeth through the routine of being bathed and changed like an infant. While in the bath he notes that he’s lost weight and muscle tone. How is he going to make an escape in this condition? Olrik supposes, correctly, that the staff is only treating him kindly because they assume his personality, his true self, has been annihilated. If he were only left alone for a little while, he could practice talking and moving, but there are always people about. 

Later, Olrik is examined by Dr. Soprianski who notes some changes to his blood pressure and pulse. He listens while Pritchard reads the papers out loud. She feeds him a thick soup and walks him about the ward very slowly. As an experiment, he attempts to veer off towards a window. 

“Do you want to look out?” she asks. “See what a nice day it is? Wouldn’t you like to go outside?” 

Olrik walks until he is exhausted, occasionally breaking away. Pritchard seems pleased with his willfulness. Later, he overhears Pritchard discussing his progress with a very familiar voice. Olrik steels himself for the confrontation, and is slumped and staring at the floor when Philip Mortimer pulls a chair up to his. 

“It’s me again, not that you care,” Mortimer begins. “I hear you’re doing a little better. I’m going to talk to Soprianski later and share my latest findings.” Mortimer goes on to describe his ideas about the waves and the human brain. He talks about fishing and fresh air and the progress of the other patients. He gently takes hold of Olrik’s hands and delivers a heartfelt apology for his part in destroying Olrik’s mind. It’s all Olrik can do not to laugh. He recognizes those hands from the Limbo World. How many times has Mortimer come to expiate his sin?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written another story where Professor Mortimer visits Olrik out of guilt over destroying Olrik's mind. Mortimer isn't fond of Olrik, but he's soft-hearted, at least in my head canon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mortimer consults with Dr. Soprianski.

“Any change to his vital signs, doctor?”

“Mmmm. Nothing significant.” Soprianski makes a note and turns his clipboard face down. He doesn’t much like sharing information with Professor Mortimer, whom he considers a busybody, but he has to admit that the physicist has provided valuable insight. “His pulse is a bit stronger and his heart rate has increased to 70. Still well within normal range. I’d hardly call it conclusive.”

“Nurse Pritchard says he was walking a lot today.”

“Yes, whatever ‘a lot’ means. Pritchard is not precise.”

“And he was looking out the window.”

“He stood before the window at any rate. Pritchard is an emotional young woman, professor. She wants to see progress, so she sees progress.”

“I wonder if he’s just behind the other men. After all, he was more directly influenced by the Mega and Septimus rays than any of them.”

“That is a possible theory. Of course, the other men have had the benefit of treatment much longer than Olrik.”

Mortimer reminds himself to be patient. Soprianski has never seen the rays in action and is not a physicist. Also, he’s a pig-headed egomaniac who only recently gave up the idea that the men were faking their illness somehow. 

“I suppose you will inform the authorities.”

“Of what? A few wildly optimistic observations by a young nurse? He belongs here, not in a prison hospital.”

“Of course, but there should be a contingency plan.”

“I will not lose a valuable research subject by jumping at shadows. If I feel there is any risk, I will of course take the appropriate steps.”

Mortimer nods. There is no point in arguing with Soprianski. He looks Olrik in the face. Whatever Soprianski says, the man’s color is definitely better, his eyes more alive. Mortimer pulls the maroon robe over Olrik’s chest.

“He can’t appreciate your gesture, professor.”

“Perhaps not, but it makes me feel better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really dislike Dr. Soprianski as depicted in The Septimus Wave.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soprianski makes a decision.

Soprianski decides to stop the nightly sedations. Instead, the men will be allowed to fall asleep naturally unless they cause trouble for the staff. There is no question that they’ve become more active. They walk more, sometimes without being prompted. Some of them try to feed themselves. They utter phrases that might make sense in another context. Two have shown signs of recognizing loved ones. Even Olrik, who lags far behind the others, has started walking more and sleeping less.

Soprianski doesn’t mention Olrik’s changes to Scotland Yard or MI5. He’s a busy man. They can come to him if they’re so interested. Besides, Mortimer probably tells his captain friend everything. In any case, his research is the more important that whatever spy games the others have going on. His work could revolutionize the treatment of catatonic and shell-shocked patients. If people like Blake and Mortimer are going to keep sending him traumatized men, the least they can do it let him work.

The men have been put to bed by the time Soprianski is ready to go home. He decides to take one last look around the ward and see if Shaw has anything new to report. He does. All of the men have showed increasing signs of awareness, except the usual hold out. Soprianski frowns and walks over to Olrik’s bed.

“I want to take a better look at him, bloodwork, x-rays, the works. Make a note to have him brought to my exam room at 10 tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll do that, Dr. Soprianski. I have a theory…”

“I’m going home, Dr. Shaw. We can discuss it at a more appropriate time.”

“Of course.” 

Sopriansky leaves and Shaw is left to grumble to himself. Olrik lies still in his cot, mind racing. 10 o’clock. This could be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Olrik has a deadline! Now we're cooking.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very short, decisive chapter.

The next morning Olrik is not given breakfast. Instead he’s put in a gown, strapped to a gurney, and taken to an exam room. Right at ten, Soprianski arrives. One orderly remains behind to manipulate the patient while the doctor runs his tests. Everything seems normal; too normal. Soprianski narrows his eyes and write some quick notes on a prescription pad.

“I’m changing the bloodwork and radiology orders. Take this to whichever senior nurse is on his ward and have her arrange it.”

“Yes, doctor. Should I send someone in to assist?”

“Don’t bother. I can handle him.”

The orderly leaves. Soprianski turns to his patient, glaring.

“Well, then. Are you ready to come out?” 

Soprianski pinches the skin between Olrik’s right thumb and forefinger and gives a vicious twist. Olrik stiffens.

“Aha. There we go.” He raises his hand to Olrik’s face and flicks his finger just below the colonel’s left eye. The two men stare at each other for a long second of mutual understanding. Soprianski has just enough time to register fear when a fist comes out of nowhere, knocking him out cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Beatrice Kiddo could get away after months in a coma, then Olrik can escape after a few weeks of catatonia.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get out! Get out! Get out!

Olrik works as quickly as he can. Soprianski is out, but that’s because of the placement of the blow, not the force behind it. He drops to the ground and gags Soprianski with a towel. He strips off the doctor’s lab coat, shirt, shoes, and trousers and ties the man’s wrists and ankles with pieces of cloth torn from the examination gown.

The clothes don’t fit but the lab coat camouflages all. To complete his disguise, Olrik puts on the doctor’s reading glasses and carries his clipboard and pen. As soon as his breathing slows he leaves the exam room and walks down the halls calm as can be. He nods at staff members and even opens a door for a “colleague.” After the longest ten minutes of his life, Olrik finds himself in the doctors’ parking lot. Soprianski’s keys and wallet are in his pocket. The spaces are marked. Ah, there we go. Ugh. A Citroen? But beggars can’t be choosers.

The car has a tank full of gas, but Olrik is running on pure adrenalin as he leaves Bedlam behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now Olrik needs allies.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now my beloved original character shows up to save the day.

Of course he can’t keep the car, as much as he’d like to. Olrik ditches the Citroyen and the lab coat at Peckham Rye Park and heads for the nearest phone box. He makes one brief call and proceeds to the Herne Tavern. What should be a fifteen-minute walk takes him nearly an hour. When he gets to the Herne, Delaney is already wedged in a corner nervously nursing a pint.

The pub is crowded. Nobody even glances his way. Delaney signals for another pint. It’s funny how he turns into The Lawyer as soon as his client shows up.

“I’d heard you were doing better, but this is unexpected.”

“You’d heard?”

“I’ve had people checking on you regularly. Don’t worry, I’ve been the soul of discretion.”

Olrik notes, not for the first time, that hiring Thomas Delaney as his London agent was one of the smartest moves he’s ever made. Tall, bony, and mousy-haired, Delaney looks like a timid assistant to a country parson, but he’s brilliant and efficient. Delaney doesn’t seek criminal clients, he simply commits completely to those clients he chooses to take on, and Olrik is in that select group.

“I’m not well.”

“I can see that. You shouldn’t be alone. A driver is going to meet us in one hour. I was going to have him take you to your flat, but I think the best option is to send you to Brighton. I can arrange a private doctor while you’re on the road.”

Olrik stares at the table, his face frozen in anger. “They’ve damned near killed me this time.”

Delaney signals the waiter and order two more pints, and two plates of shepherd’s pie. He waits silently for Olrik’s fury to play itself out, and when that sharp face slips into weariness, he tries again.

“Eat something. Your first priority is recovering your strength. Anything else can wait.”

“You’re right, as always. Brighton could work.”

“It would only be for a few days. I’ll arrange everything, have clothes sent. If you like, I’ll take you myself.”

“No, no. You have your work. The driver will be fine.”

The waiter sets the plates down. The food smells delicious, and Olrik eats nearly a third of it before giving up. 

“I bet that was better than hospital food.”

“You can’t imagine.”

“What little I’ve gathered of the whole incident sounds fairly wretched.”

Olrik pushes the plate aside and rubs his eyes.

“Ready to go?”

Delaney pays the bill and leads his client out of the pub. A black Bentley Continental pulls up. The driver double-parks, steps out smartly, and opens the passenger door. Olrik slides in and leans back in the seat.

“Take him to the Grand in Brighton. And Fred? Call me when you get there.”

Olrik unrolls the window. “Come and see me as soon as it’s convenient. In fact, make it a holiday, my treat.”

Delaney grins. “Angela’s been talking about a break.”

The Bentley drives off. As Delaney strolls back to his station he notices six police vehicles and at least twenty members of the force on the street. Good luck, coppers, he thinks. You'll never get him. Delaney chuckles inwardly. It’s not that he enjoys breaking the law, he just takes pleasure in a job well done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more on Delaney, see my story aptly titled "Delaney."

**Author's Note:**

> I like the idea of the men being frantically busy inside their own minds, while they bodies slump in wheelchairs in the real world.
> 
> Thanks to darkrogue1 for her aid and encouragement.


End file.
